![\"Manhattan](\"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2017\/10\/show-tell-write-connectivity-mba-essay-mbamission.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Taking the GRE for your business school application? You\u2019re in luck. Each month, we are featuring a series of MBA admission tips from our exclusive admissions consulting partner,\u00a0<\/i><\/b>mbaMission<\/i><\/b><\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n You may have heard the old journalistic maxim \u201cShow, don\u2019t tell,\u201d which demands that writers truly illustrate the actions involved in an event or a story rather than simply stating the results of what happened.<\/span><\/p>\n Here is an example of \u201ctelling\u201d in an MBA essay (results-oriented):<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI arrived at ABC Bank and took on a great deal of responsibility in corporate lending. I managed diverse clients in my first year and earned the recognition of my manager. Because of my hard work, initiative, and leadership, he placed me on the management track, and I knew that I would be a success in this challenging position.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n In these three sentences, the reader is told that the applicant \u201ctook on a great deal of responsibility,\u201d \u201cmanaged diverse clients,\u201d and \u201cearned recognition,\u201d though none of these claims are substantiated via the story. Further, we are given no real evidence of the writer\u2019s \u201chard work, initiative, and leadership.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Here is an example of \u201cshowing\u201d in an MBA essay (action-oriented):<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAlmost immediately after joining ABC bank, I took a risk in asking management for the accounts left behind by a recently transferred manager. I soon expanded our lending relationships with a children\u2019s clothing retailer, a metal recycler, and a food distributor, making decisions on loans of up to $1M. Although I had a commercial banking background, I sought the mentorship of our district manager and studied aggressively for the CFA exam (before and after 14-hour days at the office); I was encouraged when the lending officer cited my initiative and desire to learn, placing me on our management track.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n In this second example, we see evidence of the writer\u2019s \u201cgreat deal of responsibility\u201d (client coverage, $1M lending decisions) and \u201cdiverse clients\u201d (a children\u2019s clothing retailer, a metal recycler, and a food distributor). Further, the candidate\u2019s \u201chard work, initiative, and leadership\u201d are clearly illustrated throughout. The second example paragraph of the MBA essay is more interesting, rich, and humble\u2014and more likely to captivate the reader. By showing your actions in detail, you ensure that your reader draws the desired conclusions about your skills and accomplishments, because the necessary facts are included to facilitate this. Essentially, facts become your evidence!<\/span><\/p>\n Similar to showing instead of telling, \u201cconnectivity\u201d is another important element of professional writing. Simply put, an adept MBA essay writer ensures that each sentence is part of a chain\u2014each sentence depends on the previous one and necessitates the next. With this linkage in place, the central idea is constantly moving forward, giving the story a natural flow and making it easy to follow. Although you do not need to write at the same level as a professional journalist, you should still embrace this concept, because it is central to excellent MBA essay writing. With a \u201cconnected\u201d MBA essay, you will grab and hold your reader\u2019s attention.<\/span><\/p>\n You can test your essay\u2019s connectivity by removing a sentence from one of your paragraphs. If the central idea in the paragraph still makes complete sense after this removal, odds are you have superfluous language, are not advancing the story effectively, and should revise your MBA essay draft.<\/span><\/p>\n Try this exercise with a random selection from the <\/span>New York Times<\/span><\/i>:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFor many grocery shoppers, the feeling is familiar: that slight swell of virtue that comes from dropping a seemingly healthful product into a shopping cart. But at one New England grocery chain, choosing some of those products may induce guilt instead. The chain, Hannaford Brothers, developed a system called Guiding Stars that rated the nutritional value of nearly all the food and drinks at its stores from zero to three stars. Of the 27,000 products that were plugged into Hannaford\u2019s formula, 77 percent received no stars, including many, if not most, of the processed foods that advertise themselves as good for you. These included V8 vegetable juice (too much sodium), Campbell\u2019s Healthy Request Tomato soup (ditto), most Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice frozen dinners (ditto) and nearly all yogurt with fruit (too much sugar).\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n If you were to delete any of these sentences, you would create confusion for the reader, proving that each sentence is connected and vital. ?<\/span><\/p>\n Taking the GRE for your business school application? You\u2019re in luck. Each month, we are featuring a series of MBA admission tips from our exclusive admissions consulting partner,\u00a0mbaMission. You may have heard the old journalistic maxim \u201cShow, don\u2019t tell,\u201d which demands that writers truly illustrate the actions involved in an event or a story rather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[645523,645522,1362363,672694],"tags":[1362345,1362422,1362453],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-10942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apps-and-admissions-mba-2","category-mba-2","category-mbamission","category-partners","tag-gre-for-mba","tag-mba-essay","tag-mission-admission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10942"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11008,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10942\/revisions\/11008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10942"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\n![\"Manhattan](\"https:\/\/cdn2.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2017\/01\/logo-150x150.png\"){kind=logo}
mbaMission<\/i><\/b><\/a>\u00a0is the leader in MBA admissions consulting with a full-time and comprehensively trained staff of consultants<\/i><\/b>, all with profound communications and MBA experience. mbaMission has helped thousands of candidates fulfill their dream of attending prominent MBA programs around the world. Take your first step toward a more successful MBA application experience with a free 30-minute consultation with one of mbaMission\u2019s senior consultants.\u00a0<\/i>Click here to sign up today.<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"